World | UK
Plan unveiled to revive N. Ireland power-sharing
The British and Irish governments unveiled a complex plan yesterday for resurrecting a Catholic-Protestant administration for Northern Ireland.
- AP
- Published: 00:00 October 14, 2006
St Andrews, Scotland: The British and Irish governments unveiled a complex plan yesterday for resurrecting a Catholic-Protestant administration for Northern Ireland.
The prime ministers of Britain and Ireland, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, jointly unveiled their proposals after failing to broker an agreement between Northern Ireland's polar extremes: the Protestants of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists and the Catholics of Gerry Adams' Sinn Fein.
The premiers gave both parties a month to accept their blueprint. If either side refused, they warned, the three-year quest to revive power-sharing, the central goal of the Good Friday peace accord of 1998, would be abandoned.
Basis
"I think there is the basis for moving forward. It's very difficult. People are overcoming a number of entrenched positions over many years," said Blair, who was standing beside Ahern at the end of three days of negotiations at a luxury golf resort near this seaside university town.
The plan calls for Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army-linked party that represents the Irish Catholic minority, to make the first move in a series of coordinated steps with the Democratic Unionists, who represent the British Protestant majority.
Sinn Fein's executive board would be required first to signal the party's abandonment of its decades-old opposition to the Northern Ireland police. Paisley, in exchange, would order his party to elect himself and a senior Sinn Fein figure most likely deputy leader Martin McGuinness to be joint leaders of Northern Ireland's new administration.
The plan said Paisley and Sinn Fein's nominee would not receive any powers until months later, however, during which time Paisley's Protestant followers would be able to test whether Sinn Fein was truly supporting the police in word and deed.
If they deemed that Sinn Fein had embraced British law and order for the first time in its history, the way would be clear for the Northern Ireland Assembly to elect the rest of the administration, probably in March.
Shortly afterward, the coalition would receive substantial government powers including, for the first time, over police and justice from Britain. The plan specified March 26 as a target date for this to happen.
To sweeten the deal for all sides, Britain pledged to postpone its plans to enact a series of painful reforms in Northern Ireland concerning schools, property tax hikes and new water charges moves that, in most cases, both Catholics and Protestants opposed. Blair said a local administration, if formed, should have the opportunity to choose its own policies on all those matters.
Veto power
Paisley, whose hard-line party triumphed in the 2003 Assembly elections and holds veto power over forming any administration, earlier said he was not willing to negotiate with Sinn Fein on its terms for accepting the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
The traditionally Protestant-dominated police force is midway through a 10-year reform programme that has already boosted its Catholic officers from 8 per cent to 20 per cent. But police still face hostility when operating in Sinn Fein power bases.
The IRA killed 1,775 people including nearly 300 police officers from 1970 to a 1997 ceasefire.
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